From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Wed Mar 26 2003 - 16:31:50 GMT
Hi David,
> DMB answers:
> A pre-SOM intellect, one not yet alienated from its parent, the social
> level, a philosophy not divorced from myth. As products of scientific
> secular Western culture, our intellectual constructions don't have that
cozy
> relationship with the social level, so much so that it takes a book like
> Kingsley's or Pirsig's to even see what one looks like.
I view scientific culture as a culture which is unaware of its own
mythology. I don't believe that it is possible to have understandings
separate from meta-narratives, ie the overall story within which the
different pieces make sense. I see it as a conceit of SOM thinking that we
have finally gained 'objectivity' and release from previous religious
stories. The scientific story is that written by Bacon in the sixteenth
century.
I see ALL intellectual thinking as conditioned by mythology - hence the
shrub/tree.
> DMB says:
> OK, we've got two rival analogies about the evolutionary relationship
> between the social and intellectual levels, the shrub/tree vs. the
discrete
> levels. The first one implies that no definate line should be drawn, the
> more evolved version merely being a larger or more mature version of the
> same creature. The second one says that the more evolved level is an
> entirely different creature, not just a more mature one. Totally aside
from
> the fact that Wilber was talking about levels when he said it, we have to
> have the line. Not because its a better idea just for good theoretical
> reason, although that's true too, but because it is a description of the
> world. That line marks one of the main disasters of Modernity, the
> alienation of science from religion and vice versa. I think the line has
> already been drawn far too well.
I don't understand this. I don't see why we have to have the line. I think
the line is a product of SOM thinking, part of the scientistic illusion. I
deny that it is a 'description of the world'. I agree that one of the main
disasters of Modernity is the alienation of science from religion - yet I
don't see why you offer that as support for your argument. To me it supports
my side!! Maybe I'm just being obtuse.
> DMB says:
> How can Christianity be valid, but not function at the intellectual level?
> Myth and theology present valid information, but its not intellectual
> information. Doctrines are not valid as facts, they are valid as
doctrines.
> Myths are not valid as facts, they are valid as myths. Recall how Pirsig
> says you've only experienced the mass when the bread is Actually the body
of
> Christ.
Use a different example. This one is much too contentious to be used with
me!!!!
> That's when it works and is valid. Intellect can't ACTUALLY believe
> it. Nor can it accept virgin births, rising from death to live again,
> eternal life, fire and brimestone, the apocalypse or salvation. As myths
> represent some of the most profound and important insights into human
nature
> that have ever existed, but as facts they are impossible non-sense.
This is the place to bring in your comments from the 'life after death'
thread.
> DMB says:
> This is one of those cases where the distinction between mythic thinking
and
> intellectual thinking is impossible to avoid. In scientific and rational
> sense, people do not come back to life after being dead for three days.
> That's a fact. The resurrection is a myth. That's what "makes a simple
> understanding of 'life after death' problematic. The difference between
> myths and facts is the cause of your ambivalence. Any attempt to mix
> theology and philosophy has to be predicated on a failure to respect that
> difference. It makes intellectual sense only when we read the myth
> symbolically and poetically instead of literally and actually.
I think you have a naive understanding of what a 'fact' is. There are no
uninterpreted facts, and interpretations are governed by their overarching
narrative framework. "Our knowledge forms an enormous system. And only
within this system has a particular bit the value we give it." (LW)
Those who reject the resurrection (or whatever) are saying that they embrace
a different narrative, that's all. "VERY intelligent and well-educated
people believe in the story of creation in the Bible, while others hold it
as proven false, and the grounds of the latter are well known to the
former." (LW, emphasis his)
> In that case
> we can see that it is about transcendence, about transforming one's
> consciousness so that a new life begins and the old one dies. In this way,
> salvation is not about forgiveness so much as transformation, an
> enlightenment, an expanded scope or vision. All the allusions to
conquering
> death, to eternal life, to heaven, to the virgin birth, to the rapture, to
> being born again and many like them all refer to the transforming power of
a
> mystical experience, to the cup being emptied, to a new life. I'm painting
> in broad strokes, but I imagine your interest in and knowledge of this
area
> will let you flood it with detailed examples and confirmations of this
> general idea.
Unfortunately my "interest in and knowledge of this area" lead me to think
that you are being reductive and essentialist, neglecting the
particularities of different beliefs and values in favour of a Platonising
search for the 'essence'. I also dispute the emphasis on 'experience', but
we've ridden that particular hobby horse enough times already.
> DMB says:
> Pirsig says that ritual has to grow out of your own nature and shouldn't
be
> intellectualized or patched on. Campbell basically says the same thing. He
> says you can't invent a myth or ritual anymore that you can decide what
your
> dreams will be about tonight. It just doesn't work like that. But you're
on
> to something very interesting here. You say you'd like the MOQ to "combine
> with various different pre-existing religions"? I've been trying to tell
you
> that it already does.
We disagree on that.
> That's where esoteric, mystical core of the world's
> great religions, the perennial philosophy, comes in.
I think the 'perennial philosophy' is an illegitimate Enlightenment
construct.
> By analogy, this core
> message is like a single person that has been dressed in a particular
> cultural style by each particular religion. When you lay out all the
various
> pre-existing religions, read them symbolically and not literally, one can
> see the difference between the man and his clothes. The core is a
universal
> set of beliefs, that is to say it is the area where all religions agree.
Not
> only are all religions responsible for controlling biological values with
> social codes, there is also a message of a cosmic order and of
transcendence
> within that order. The social level not only civilizes the animal in us,
it
> opens the human heart to transcendent realms. Not only does the MOQ
> recognize and seek to preserve this biological control function, he
insists
> that mysticism shouldn't be excluded from the intellectual descriptions
> either.
Would it be fair to say that you see all religions as 'paths up the same
mountain' and that, if we extract the kernel from the mythological shell,
that we can get what is of value from religions without the trappings?
Equivalent to eating vitamin supplements instead of lots of bad tasting
vegetables?
> i don't know if any of this will help you start that paper. My only
> point is that I think the MOQ already does what you'd like it to do,
include
> religion, even if that's not exactly what you had in mind.
It's not what I had in mind. What are the MoQ rituals? (other than you and I
disagreeing in this forum?)
> The promise of eternal life in heaven, taken literally, is one of the
things
> that makes death such a horrifying thing in the West. Its such a colossal
> disappointment when our deepest wishes are so conspicuously dashed every
> day. Uprooted from the cultural context in which the myth was born, it has
> become an elaborate form of denial to protect the rational ego from the
> undeniable truth; one's own mortality. Its crazy.
I don't think this makes sense.
> In addition to the symbolic, intellectual interpretation of life after
death
> as a reference to the mystical experience, there is death as a literal,
> biological event too. The earliest planting cultures could see that new
life
> sprang from death. They could see new green shoots sticking up out of the
> fallen tree trunk and such. This basic motif evolves so that we soon get
the
> seasonal regicide, as in Fraizer's Golden Bough, etc..
"What a narrow spiritual life on Frazer's part! As a result: how impossible
it was for him to conceive of a life different from that of the England of
his time!"
(LW)
> Unfair to Christians? Again, its descriptive. The scientific secular world
> was built on top of the Holy Roman Empire, so when we talk about the
> difference between social and intellectual values Christianity is nearly
> impossible to avoid.
Indeed not. Is that a matter of historical accident, or is there something
more to it?
> And why, for the love of relevance, would we want to?
> Its about all I've got and can scarcely think of Buddhism, except in the
> terms of my own Western, Christian society and language. But I try not to
> give it any special status when reading Campbell, but that's probably not
> really possible.
We can't escape our language. We can only go deeper.
> Reject it so strongly? This is not a rejection of religion. Insisting that
> it is at the third level is not a subjegation of religion. It is an
> explanation of the nature of religion and the kind of consciousness in
which
> it functions properly. My attempts to draw a line between third and fourth
> level values are not so one-sided as you think. In my view, drawing that
> line as a way to get at their evolutionary relationship lends a clarity
> that, in the end, does them both a great service. It repairs the intellect
> and rescues religion as an indispensible parent of that intellect. That's
> the differnce between the MOQ and atheistic secular rationalists, which is
> basically the SOM view. Pirsig says that intellect keeps us from following
> tradition blindly, but isn't meant to reject it either. We have to go back
> and look again to see what it was trying to do, and what it did
accomplish.
> The is where Campbell and Jung can help. The philosophy of relgion. Any
kind
> of cross cultural analysis would help. Anything along those lines is
better
> than maintaining the Modern assumptions about the myths and beliefs of
> previous ages.
When you say that - again - I don't know why we disagree so much. Hey ho.
Sam
"Nothing is so difficult as doing justice to the facts." (Wittgenstein)
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